Alice Edgely
by RandomDarknessPsycho
Summary: Alice Edgely's older sister was killed in a horrible accident when she was just a child. She'd been having weird dreams about her sister ever since she was five or six years old. But when a green-eyed man with a doll shows up on her doorstep, she wonders if this is a dream or a twisted reality.


The dreamcatcher hung above the window, a pathetic little thing of feathers and beads and thread woven into a sort of spider-web.

It was said to catch the bad dreams and keep them there, so that only good dreams were filtered through the web.

Alice Edgely thought it was hilarious of her parents to give something like that to her. But she didn't mind. After all, she kind of liked looking at it when the sunlight filtered through, creating patterns on the ground.

But it was dark, now. Night was already upon the town of Haggard. The girl lay on the bed, listening to music issuing softly from the portable radio on the floor beside her bed.

It was funny, actually. The filtering never did work on her. Bad dreams came and went like it was unblocked. What could she do? It was a stupid superstition anyways.

Dreams. She had been having them since she was a child, about five or six years old…

Dreams about Stephanie, dressed in black, anger on her face, arguing with a tattooed girl with a hood. Shadows swirling around them. A boy with a ridiculous hairstyle who could disappear and reappear some way off. _Two_ Stephanies, one in all black, the other wearing normal clothes. Talking to each other. A kind of scepter with a huge black crystal embedded in it. Stephanie telling her not to touch it, snatching it away.

Stephanie was dead. A horrible accident. A sharply-dressed man with a velvet voice came over. He said he was part of the police, said that he was there to inform them what had happened. He seemed sad, like it was a personal loss for him.

Alice was too young to remember all this, she'd gotten it from Melissa and Desmond. And she wondered about these dreams, dismissing them as childish fancies. But they seemed so _vivid_, as if they really occurred, and Alice was there to witness them.

It felt rather strange at first, but soon she got used to it. Never told her parents, though. They always seemed sort of worried when she brought up the topic of Stephanie.

The man with the velvet voice… He'd given them Stephanie's things. Told them she'd been killed in a head-on collision. Alice had received the things as hand-me-downs when she got older.

Stephanie's phone, a pair of boots that her parents didn't remember buying for her, a coat that fit snugly.

The bright orange car of hers was smashed up and taken to the junkyard, the man informed.

The phone was another thing. Stephanie had never cleared her call log. Her last ever call was to an unknown number, but no one seemed to pick up when Alice had dialed it.

The girl heard a car from the street, and got out of bed. Peering outside the window, she saw it. A Bentley R-type Continental, she'd found it scribbled on a note in Stephanie's room, and Googled it. It matched what she'd seen.

It drew to a stop right in front of the house, and a man got out. He wore a hat and a sad smile. Green eyes scanned his surroundings. In his hands was a small doll made out of sticks. It looked rather creepy.

Alice wondered if she should wake her parents, but decided against it. Something told her that this man would not harm her. Would not suddenly torch the house.

So she went downstairs, padding silently, opening the front door.

The man jerked in surprise when she stepped outside.

"Can I help you?" Alice asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm a friend of your sister's," the man explained, and his voice was glorious and so familiar. "This is a gift for her." He held out the doll, but she didn't take it.

"What it is?"

"A doll. A whispering doll, to keep it simple."

Now _that_ was definitely creepy.  
"Thanks… I guess." Alice took the doll, weighing it in her hands.

"Don't tell your parents. They don't really approve of me."

"I won't."

The man sighed, and tipped his hat. "I should be off now." He strode back to the Bentley.

"Wait!" Alice said. "Who are you?"

A pause. The door of the car was open, and his hand was on it. His eyes met hers.

"Like I said, a friend of Valkyrie."

Without further ado, this odd fellow got back into the car and drove off, leaving Alice standing at the doorstep in her pajamas like an idiot.

She went inside, shutting the door behind her, then back upstairs to her room.

Flinging herself on the bed, Alice held up the doll, examining it. Something straight out of a horror movie, it was.

For a moment, she thought of burning it.

Then again, it was Stephanie's, not hers.

A sudden thought struck her. The man had called her sister 'Valkyrie'.

Weird. Just a slip-up perhaps, or her own hearing gone awry.

She put the doll on her bedside table, and switched off the radio. Her eyes closed. Whispering.

It was her imagination, she bet, for when she opened her eyes, no one was in sight.

Alice let the whispering lull her to sleep. Imagination playing tricks, always had. Click her fingers, generate a spark. Stupid little brain going crazy. Seeing things that weren't there.

The whispering told her stories then. Of a girl called Valkyrie Cain and a man called Skulduggery Pleasant.

Going crazy. Thoughts and ideas spinning out of control. Alice was pretty sure she was losing it.

Perhaps this was just a dream. That there was no doll, no mysterious green-eyed man.

Yes, that's it. A dream.

A dream of a life hidden in plain sight.


End file.
